The agency, which specialises in words and creative content for hospitality and tourism businesses around the world, is on the hunt for artists to contribute work to The Painted Elephant, an elephant-themed colouring e-book for children and adults. The aim of the e-book is to bring awareness to the plight of the elephant in Thailand and raise funds for Samui Elephant Haven.
Samui Elephant Haven provides a sanctuary for rescued elephants on Koh Samui. The elephants living at the sanctuary previously endured harrowing lives providing entertainment at tourist shows and walking endlessly on tourist treks. With that life now behind them, these lucky elephants are free to express their instincts without fear – interacting with each other in beautiful natural surroundings, foraging on native plants in the jungle and playing together in their pools and mud pits. Funds raised from purchases of The Painted Elephant will help the sanctuary make further rescues and construct additional safe enclosures.
So far, QWERTY PR has 15 talented artists on board from different corners of the world, each set to bring their own individual styles to the e-book.
Kind contributors include Dolores de Sade, an artist from the UK living on Koh Samui, who is turning her hand from her signature forgotten landscapes to gentle giants in a style she describes as “wilderness of the other, escape and the search for the horizon”. Her etched and engraved works have been held in prestigious private and public collections across the world, including the V&A in the UK, the Ministry of Culture in Thailand and the Guanglan and Guangdong Museums in China.
Yvonne Roberts and Donna Reiss are used to using their artistic talents for good use; the pair are part of the Samui Trash Bins community who create vibrant, fun painted bins and distribute them across the island to encourage visitors and residents to keep the community clean. Each bin takes around 50 hours to paint and Yvonne and Donna will bring this careful dedication and attention to detail to their elephantastic contribution.
American Ellie Barnard is already an accomplished author and avid elephant activist at the tender age of 11. Her book, Ellie’s Elephants: A true story of a little girl and her wish for chain-free elephants, is based on her deep love for these animals and her wish for them to be free. She will be creating a picture for the e-book and flying from her home in Singapore to Koh Samui later this year to play mini-mahout and meet the creatures she works so hard to protect.
QWERTY PR continues to seek out talented artists from across the world for this project. The agency will collate the artists’ work in a PDF format. Artists are also asked to provide a short biography, a quote about elephants, their signature and their contact details (web address and a social media page). Assistance is offered with the creation of text if required.
Enquiries and artwork should be sent to Katie at pen@qwertypr.com. The deadline for artwork is August 31. For more information about the sanctuary, visit samuielephanthaven.org